Charlotte Hornets: Dwight Howard, new guards are key in 2017-18

The Charlotte Hornets’ fate in 2017-18 could lie in the hands of Dwight Howard and the complimentary guards that surround him

Dwight Howard is reunited with his old assistant coach from that 2009 Magic championship run team, Steve Clifford, after the Hawks shipped him to the Charlotte Hornets.

With 20/20 hindsight from what worked and what fell apart during the Magic’s 2009 championship run, Hornets head coach Clifford, with Howard’s dominant presence, can turn Kemba Walker’s team into a playoff contender and possibly this year’s Eastern Conference dark horse team.

Thinned out last year, when they traded their 2016 first-round draft pick (22nd overall) for Marco Belinelli, the team missed out on the chance to draft shooting specialist Malachi Richardson. This year, the Hornets come back from that botched deal by grabbing 6-foot-3 long-range deadshot scoring guard Malik Monk in the first round to backstop their All-Star point guard Kemba Walker.in the backcourt.

While the offseason rolled on, Kemba talked the Hornets front office into grabbing combo guard Michael Carter-Williams as an unrestricted free agent let go by the Chicago Bulls.

The third guard on the Hornets’ roster off the draft is Dwayne Bacon, a tough 6-foot-7 guard who loves to barrel past smaller defenders and take it to the rim. If you review Bacon’s summer league performance, he actually looks like a poor man’s Jimmy Butler, an unstoppable 6-foot-7 guard who can get to the rim if his defender doesn’t stay in front of him.

And Bacon has a mid-range jumper that is always on. He only needs to work on consistency for his longer-range bombs to be more effective, but the Hornets already have lottery prize, Malik Monk, for that.

What do these guys have to offer in syncing with Dwight Howard? Obviously, Clifford will slow down the pace of the game for Howard to get his points and be happy with the team while contributing as an offensive weapon – don’t think Dwight’s just going to grab missed threes and block shots of the opposing team.

If Clifford were smart in the old school ways of the NBA, Howard can put opposing bigs in foul trouble while getting his numbers if the team slows down the game to take advantage of Dwight in the paint. With the opponent’s bigs in foul trouble, the Hornets’ backcourt can drive to the rim at will to close out games in killer fashion.

The current Charlotte Hornets’ backcourt on paper looks way better than that championship run Magic team of 2009 ( Orlando just had Courtney Lee and Jameer Nelson as the standouts at the guard spot and J.J.Reddick yet to find his NBA game). The new Hornets’ guards with Kemba Walker, simply have more firepower and defensive smarts to match up with other NBA teams in the East.

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And if you look at the personal game style of each of the Hornets’ new guard complement – Carter-Williams, Malik Monk, Dwayne Bacon – they all love to take it to the rim. That helps Howard’s game even more if he can dive with the guards for putbacks and offensive rebounds as opposed to guards who just chuck it up from outside resulting in fastbreaks off misses which Howard can’t run down anymore.

The Rashard Lewis clone in the Hornets team should hands down be Nick Batum for his lights-out offense. Marvin Williams is their best defensive forward in the mold of Martin Gortat and Hedo Türkoğlu. Williams as the veteran def stopper can cover the opponent’s strongest scoring option, like say Jimmy Butler, while Gortat and Türkoğlu just defended Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

The championship Magic formula of surrounding Dwight Howard with shooters should work again as long as those guys don’t just chuck it up, but also have games that bring stronger offensive options to the center in the paint – like driving to the hoop at will.

It may even look that scoring on every possession by using the paint as the first option, if available, should be the Charlotte Hornets’ best bet. This should be better than running out to chuck threes like Golden State or Houston while missing on 60 percent of those attempts.

Focusing on a slower Charlotte Hornets game for Howard, during some quarters to develop as a scoring threat and keep him healthy all season long while developing all of their new backcourt additions with big minutes is coach Clifford’s homework for this season. With opportunities to create all sorts of new offensive styles for the Hornets this year, Charlotte can run a two-man dive game with Howard sliding to the hoop and getting to the free throw line or making a pocket pass behind him to Malik Monk for the jam.

Or, Clifford can develop a three guard offense with Kemba Walker and Malik Monk bombing from long range while Michael Carter-Williams plays slasher in the paint and long-arm defense.

It would help the team to have kept promising D-League star and power forward Christian Wood on the team over their other bigs because Clifford could have developed him as a future piece instead of running with seniors Frank Kaminski and Cody Zeller until they run out of gas.

The Hornets only need to get one more yeoman power forward who can help Howard in the paint on defense and also cover shooters so that Dwight doesn’t gas himself out or get fatigue injuries from an 82-game season.

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If we work off the eye test, as our analysis for this year retooled Charlotte Hornets, the team looks really better than last year’s Jeremy Lin-less team and misguided gamble on Marco Belinelli (a poor decision made just because they ran out of firepower in their playoff appearance in 2015).

It is important to really give the young guys plenty of development minutes with Dwight Howard included as a main weapon on offense, at the expense of a few wins, so that they mature in time for a strong showing at the playoffs again.